Elskede
by Blanketspace
Summary: Elskede; it means beloved. Prompt: Someone isn't up on recent last century happenings so when they come across a Petrova doppelganger a few decades after all the Mystic Falls stuff has ended they grab Elena and bring her to the Mikaelsons hoping for a reward. Elijah is amused but angry. His siblings are way more than amused. And Elena's just pissed off.


**disclaimer** : I do not own any of the characters mentioned nor do I own the television show ' _The Vampire Diaries_ '.  
 **notes** : prompted on tumblr & no-beta, we die like men.

* * *

Moronic, oblivious, and perhaps a little too cavalier about their impending demise after death. These would all be things that Elijah may term the gentlemen standing before him. No, not gentlemen – thugs, brigands, petulant children searching for an elder's approval, certainly but not gentlemen. And somehow they had managed to completely overlook the events over the centuries, the ever-expanding chaos that blithered out from Mystic Falls and across the known world. More specifically in the Americas –

It had been no secret that, save over two centuries ago, the Mikaelson family had been searching for the last living Petrova doppelganger, a rarity and much sought out supernatural phenomenon manifested in human flesh. She had been found, albeit a little haphazardly, and most certainly pressing prophecies had been fulfilled, rituals were done, curses were broken, and several other… Less _savory_ things transpired in the wake of such a discovery.

He had intended to keep her a secret from the rest of his family, which lasted about a month of constant monitoring. And yet, like all things he endeavors to keep his family's prying, carmine stained fingers from – discretion had been the better part of valor and two brothers did nothing to abide by it.

Yet this is far different and if it weren't for the sorry state of the girl before him, sallow and clearly starved, veins of desiccation slipping around her joints and from behind the soft curve of her jaw, Elijah might have found himself entertained by the display of stupidity. Instead, bile reaches in the back of his throat and joints of his knuckles crack with each clench of a heavy hand.

His siblings speak before he can.

"The Petrova doppelganger, hm? And why exactly would we want her? Seems like a waste of air and time, if you ask me. I thought they had something of value when they asked for an audience." A flash of blonde hair, jaw working, and its sister's piercing gaze that speaks words he cannot.

"Now, now, Rebekah, these fine men have brought me a gift. After all, I was searching for the doppelganger nearly three centuries ago." Niklaus chuckles from behind, rounding their sister with a listless air. "I had a use for her back then, but we're past that now. Aren't we?"

"You clods should note my brother's use of past-tense." Kol, ever the wordsmith. "A little late to the party, I must say."

Breath leaves him, though he has no use for it – something cathartic to pass over tense lips before a swipe of tongue peeks out. Whatever irritation reared itself in his mind, his siblings managed to quell it with their tittering. His head tilts, cheek moving to rest against a still balled fist, and his gaze has yet to stray from a face thought of over a thousand times.

"Did you not notice?" He finally speaks in a dull roar that booms through the empty building save for tarp-over furniture and brass chandeliers. Turning to see each of his family's expressions would be a useless and boorish task, knowing that each of them wears their own smirk of amusement to his inquiry. Klaus, half-cocked and wry. Rebekah, pursed and puckered with dimples. And Kol, full-tooth and lazy.

The men before speak, one in particular with a slouched posture and stained t-shirt. "Notice what? You've been looking for the doppelganger and here she is. Isn't much to notice besides that."

"My, they are stupid."

"Rebekah, please," he murmurs in an aside. A sigh slips yet again from him as his rises, shifting to fuss with unwrinkled shirt-cuffs. They rise up on his arms, creasing in neat, practiced folds. "I was merely asking these… Exuberant men if they had noticed the obvious, that the woman they have in their hold, while in fact is a Petrova Doppelganger, she is also a vampire and not the one that my brother so loves to torment."

If they had heartbeats, Elijah might have heard them thundering in their chests.

"That is Elena Gilbert, a favored of this family."

A throat clears, annoyed and huffy. The eldest smiles, casting a look back at a petulant sister.

" – A favored of some of this family. Predominately myself, if I'm to be bold. She has done me a great service in the past, beyond the errors committed by her comrades against my family, though they may have deserved it at the time." Another huff and hem he does not acknowledge echoes in the emptiness. "And if her condition is any measure, you have been less than favorable in bringing her here in this condition. Malnourished, exhausted, and under presumptive context for a reward that you simply have not earned."

Fabric bunches at the tops of his elbows and his shoes, oiled leather, clack readily on the stone flooring. The would-be idiotic entrepreneurs, he'll call them, stumbling upon approach.

He finds himself smiling, looking down at a girl filled to the brim with passion and forgiveness, unyielding in her hope even in her own demise. Teeth press into his lip, forcing himself to tear away from such a thing. There is no time to entertain the fitful thoughts she invokes in him, more than any other in the past thousand years, even so, because she returned such thoughts all the same –

Three. There is only three of them and that's an easy enough number to count up to, easy enough number to count down to.

Elijah chuckles, " If you wish to retain our favor, you'll let her go now."

One of them scoffs, "Your favor? Your favor doesn't help us at all. So, what you're telling me is that we did all this work for nothing? Capturing some trampy doppelganger wannabe."

"That distinctly sounds like a personal problem." Rebekah cries from the back, shouldering Kol, both wearing a knowing expression.

"Oh no," he finds himself placating, clasping a hand harshly against a misshapen shoulder. "Not nothing. You'll have my gratitude for finding her as long as you live."

It takes perhaps a second, maybe two for the sensation to register. He even catches the bewildered blink of that girl he's penned so many letters to, unknowing the immediacy of what transpired. Hearts were an interesting thing in the corpses of people yet bound by a frail mortal coil. They are cold, muscular with no true traces of fat yet engorged.

And the organ drops to the floor with a solid, squishy plop. A horrified face, strained and greying purses a smile unto his own, fingers releasing a clasped shoulder only to witness a body slumping to the ground.

"Though I'm afraid it'll be short-lived."

Only two more to go.

* * *

"You didn't have to kill them." Her soft tone flutters against his ears, mouth grazing a wrist clasped to the plump petals of her mouth, and he's ever in awe. They are between sheets, slick with sweat and adoration – her hair a mess from where his fingers tangled and pulled, skin blotched from where his mouth made marks between smattering affection and nips.

He smooths fingers against her shoulder, nudging his hand gripped in her's urgently against her mouth. "But I did. Not only did they waste my family's time and bring harm to you," Elijah pauses, his gaze expectant, urging her to focus. " – but I cannot abide by anyone who speaks of a lady in such a manner."

It's brief but she gives him the smile he's been wanting to see for ages; for at least twenty years if he's been counting the time correctly and he always has. Between that and the moments in the past several hours she's spent calling his name, imprinting the memory of her nails into his shoulders, and cradling him betwixt her thighs … It's almost enough to sate the longing.

"I'm not saying I disapprove or whatever," her mouth kisses his palm and he hums. "Just maybe we coulda have seen why people are still looking for me? I mean, the doppelganger. You'd think that information would have gotten out. About me, about Katherin–"

He shushes her with a kiss, leaning down to press lips chaste against her own before drawing her up further into his arms. She settles against his chest readily enough, with a snort and a giggle as his arms wrap around her waist, enjoying the feel of her bare flesh on his.

He's waited centuries for this. Perhaps not with _her_ face in his mind, a remnant of a girl long gone. Not Tatia or Katherina, but something that is solely loving and a perfect embodiment of it all. Something that he never knew he'd been longing for. – Utterly and completely Elena Gilbert.

"Hush. Enough about that. You're still hungry, are you not? Those morons aimed to starve you." He sees her nod, a furrowed brow gracing such divine features. " – Well, then feed."

His wrist moves against to slip beneath her chin: an offering. She seems startled, flabbergasted and keenly alert. A far cry from the lazy hooded gaze she cast him moments ago, nosing beneath his chin in the afterglow.

"From you? But… Isn't blood sharing–"

"I know what it means, Elena. Drink."

"Only if you do the same." Her desperation plays against his heart and he cannot help the smile that blooms full on his face, straining and almost painful.

Elijah kisses her forehead. "When you're feeling stronger, I don't wish to press your limits, _min_ elskede."

"Elskede?" For what seems the umpteenth time that night, he watches confusion pass over her features and still yet there is a glimmer of endearment that passes over him. All the years, all the times that he's lived and loved, words that he had never truly said to another bubble forth.

He comes to rest his forehead against hers. This, this is everything he's ever wanted. Between the sheets, in his arms, in his life – this girl, no, this woman… Everything she is and has to offer for everything he has to give.

Elijah murmurs happily,

"It means _beloved_."

And bliss comes in the pinprick of her teeth on his skin.

* * *

 **final note** : this had been prompted to me on my tumblr, heavily an AU where everyone is alive and i don't care otherwise. i'm thinking about working on a klaroline piece with heavy elejah implications, but otherwise, who knows. please r&r ! xoxo


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